The present invention relates to a self propelled harvester that tops, cuts, cleans and loads "whole stalk green sugar cane".
The universal practice of burning the sugar cane fields as an operation before harvesting, was a means of easing harvest tasks and to remove the dry, non sugar-carrying botanical components. The modern outlook on trash has changed significantly: (a) their pre harvest removal is not needed nor desired; (b) such biomass "trash" burning is desired in the furnace, not in the field; (c) trash removed that can be solar dried should be separated and left on the field for a later pickup after a few days; (d) the dewatered trash does not need to be milled and should be managed independently once separated from the whole cane; (e) though trash is important and contributes materially to the total whole cane harvest, its management must be rated at a lower priority than the whole cane harvest; (f) the overriding concern is to harvest the greater possible quantity of biomass having the highest possible quality of lignocellulose feedstock; (g) it is a low grade fate for lignocellulose trash to be burned in boilers along with humid bagasse; (h) total biomass rather than sucrose is the ultimate goal and this fact should not be lost from view.
The above guidelines taken together are not easily met, the sugar industry has been unable for ) years to comply with stringent set of cane quality standards, let alone of the biomass guidelines. Two basic types of harvest machines have Ixn developed since the early 1950's: (a) The cutting off of the stem and depositing the cane on the ground, and (b) the combined cutting, chopping (in short segments) and loading into an enclosed carrier for transport. The former type delivers excessive extraneous matter, the latter is costly, highly-consumptive of fuel due to the power necessary for the chopping and the power for the fans for the trash separation, also, the chopped material is subject to more rapid biodeterioration. Both types have a limited throughput of 100 Tons per hour.